


Icarus Complex

by byelervevo (orphan_account)



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-22
Packaged: 2019-02-05 16:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12798342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/byelervevo
Summary: Icarus Complex: A form of overcompensation wherein an individual, due to feelings of inferiority, formulates grandiose aspirations for future achievement despite lacking proper talent, experience, and/or personal connections. Such a person often exhibits elitism fueled by hubris and detachment from social reality.Or, Richie remembers back to when he got too cocky, too ambitious, too deluded in his own conscious that he burned out the only relationship that he thought would last, and he watched Eddie as he fell.





	Icarus Complex

**Author's Note:**

> Just some angst I came up with last night, felt like sharing(: I hope you like it!

He can’t really remember his seventeenth birthday. No, that’s a lie, Richie knows that. He thinks about this night, he thinks about Eddie, every night before he goes to bed and wakes up with that scrawny boy still haunting his dreams. If he thinks hard enough, Richie can taste the smoke on his tongue, and remember the feeling of his heart combusting as he looks over to see Eddie staring at him like he’s the moon. He remembers thinking _Eddie Kaspbrak is in love with me_ when he sees Eddie look away, his cheeks tinting pink, and he remembers thinking _I’m in love with Eddie Kaspbrak_ when he realizes his own cheeks are pink; he doesn’t say a word as he blows smoke into the air and leans back against the hood of his car.

“I can’t believe you bought this shitty thing.”

“It’s a birthday gift to myself. God knows my parents didn’t bother getting me anything.” Richie shrugs. “Besides, there’s a lot of space in the back. Perfect for when I take your mom to the drive in and we—”

“—Don’t finish that sentence.”

He laughs and swings his arm around Eddie’s waist, pulling him closer. “‘M cold,” he mutters into Eddie’s hair, and ignores how Eddie’s face heats up against his chest (and how his own heart rattles in his chest).

“Used cars are terrible. Aside from any safety problems, they’re usually stained with piss and blood and semen.”

“Well damn, baby. I’m not sure about the piss and blood, but I wouldn’t mind staining the seats with your—”

“Beep beep Richie.”

He closes his mouth, but presses a kiss to Eddie’s head. “Hey, let’s make a promise, yeah?”

“What kind of promise?” Eddie pulls out of their embrace to look at him skeptically.

Richie cackles again, grabbing his hair and pulling him close. “Don’t you trust me, Eddie?” He gets his answer in the form of Eddie’s chilly hand swatting at his own, causing him to release the boy’s brown curls. Richie takes this opportunity to grab Eddie’s hand and hold it tight, mirth fading like the wisps of smoke trailing from his lips. “I’ve got to get out of this town, Eds.”

Eddie opens his mouth, probably to nag him about the nickname, but shuts it and stares at Richie.

“I just— fuck, I can’t stay in this ghost town.”

“O-oh.”

“Yeah.” Richie pauses. “And you’ll come with me, yeah?”

Eddie sighs. “Richie—”

“I don’t know where we’d go, but we’ll make it there. I know we can, Eddie.” He grabs his other hand and forces him to look at him. “Promise me that you’ll come with me when I go. I just— I’ll miss you, Eds.”

Eddie’s quiet, too quiet. Richie waits for what feels like hours for his response, and has half a brain to start laughing, to say _Ha! Just kidding!_ But he doesn’t get to because suddenly Eddie’s lips are on his and his brain short circuits.

“Okay,” Eddie mumbles against his lips. Richie doesn’t respond, simply biting at Eddie’s bottom lip and bringing his hand under Eddie’s shirt once he parts his lips for him.

 

Richie drives him home, but he keeps one hand laced with Eddie’s the entire ride there. “G’night, Eds.”

“Goodnight, Richie. Happy birthday.” He says.

Richie doesn’t drive off until he sees Eddie disappear into his house, and when he sees his silhouette illuminated under the yellow lights, he finally turns his attention to the road and speeds off.

 

This dream wakes Richie in a cold sweat, and it’s nights like these where he turns the lights on and goes to watch TV, regardless of the time because he can’t fathom going to sleep after that vivid memory.

 

* * *

 

As the years pass, Richie stops remembering things. It comes to him as a blessing as a curse, but he cries when he does a double take at when he sees the name _KASPBRAK_ in the cereal aisle, only to find that it was his mind (or rather, his heart) playing tricks on him. And he thought that his nightmares would fade away as he matured, but he just finds himself waking in a cold sweat, a tuft of orange hair and a red balloon flashing before his eyes, and rushing to the bathroom to splash water on his face, to catch his breath, to remind himself that whatever is chasing him is gone, it’s gone, it’sgoneit’sgoneit’sgone i t ‘ s  g o n e , r i g h t ?

 

But that’s not even the worst of the dreams. The worst nightmare also comes to him with flashes of clarity and moments of smeary blurs, but it always plays through the same way, not matter how much he wants to yell at the younger Richie, grabbing his keys and driving down to the Kaspbrak house at 3am.

“What the fuck are you doing here? Do you have any idea what time it is?” Eddie whisper-yells at him, crawling out of his window to meet Richie on the roof.

“Pack your shit and let’s go, Eds.”

He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and blinks back at Richie. “Go? Go where, Richie?”

“You know. _Go._ ”

“You— you don’t really.” Eddie runs a hand through his hair. “Richie, it’s three in the morning. Go home, or stay the night at my place. But we’re not—”

“We are, Eddie. You promised me.”

“I _promised_ you that we’d leave together, but not at three in the morning when I have my English exam in—” he checks the clock on his wall, “—four hours. Now, can you tell me what’s wrong?”

Richie can’t tell him what’s wrong. He starts climbing down the ladder and back down to his car. “I guess this is it, then.”

“What the hell do you mean, Rich! Don’t you fucking walk away from me!” Eddie says, and he rushes down the ladder to catch Richie as he’s getting into his car.

“You heard me, Kaspbrak.” His voice is cold. Richie is staring at his younger self from the back seat, and watches without words as watches the memory play out; he can even see the moment Eddie Kaspbrak’s heart breaks, when the younger Richie keeps his hard eyes on the road and says “This town is full of ghosts, and I’m getting the hell out of here while I can.”

“ _Full of ghosts?”_ Eddie echoes, “What the hell does that make me, then?”

Silence.

Eddie takes a shaky breath and walks to the front of Richie’s car.

“Eddie, move.”

“No.” He says, voice mimicking Richie’s emptiness, but his eyes hold all of the words he still wants to say. “You can’t keep doing this to me.”

“ _Doing this to y_ — Eds, I think you’re missing the point.”

“ _No_ . You’re doing that _thing_ where you think you’re _special_ because you have a car and can get out of here and anyone who doesn’t jerk off your ego is just _naive_ to the realities of the world!” Eddie yells. “Last time you ran off like this I spent _days_ waiting for you. I thought you _died_.”

Richie honks his horn. “Jesus, Eddie, think of your neighbors!”

“Fuck the neighbors!” He yells, tears finally falling from his eyes. “You act like you’re alone, and your loneliness is what makes you special, but it’s not, Richie! You’re special because you play guitar, and wear god-awful hawaiian shirts— even when it’s below freezing— and you do Bev’s makeup to cheer her up, and you make shitty jokes at the wrong time, but you help Stan with math, and you can read us all like a book, so you can stop romanticizing your sadness and fucking get out of your car!”

“I don’t romanticize my sadness.” Richie says quickly. “I have to get out of this town because it’s been leeching my fucking soul for eighteen years now, Eddie. But you’ve grown dependent on your _mom_ , and your _medications_ , and– fuck, Eddie. I have to get out of here. What else is there to say?”

“What about us, Richie?” Eddie’s crying now, lip quivering and he’s holding his arms as if they’ll fall off.

Richie doesn’t answer because he doesn’t have an answer. Seventeen year old Richie was dumb for promising to take Eddie with him. He can’t guarantee that they’ll stay together forever; all he can do is hold on to that idea, but Eddie’s love for him is like the sea, and even sailors get lonely sometimes. “You’re really leaving– Your friends, your memories,” _me,_ “everything?”

Richie nods.

Eddie smiles, but there is no mirth in it. “Have a nice life then, Richie.”

 

Richie always wakes up at the crack in Eddie’s voice as he says his name, and when he wakes up from this dream he’s shaking and he’s crying, sobbing apologies and his name over and over until it just sounds like sounds to him, and not the one person that could ever love Richie. He got too cocky, too ambitious, too deluded in his own conscious that he burned out the only relationship that he thought would last, and he watched Eddie as he fell.

 

It’s nights like this where he feels like he’s drowning, and most nights he just lets himself be consumed by the waters of all his sins. A word for it would probably be atonement, but Richie’s usually too distracted by the emptiness in his mind to think clearly right now.

 

Richie doesn’t ever expect to be saved. Eddie tried to save him last time and look what happened. So when he gets a phone call, he hesitates before answering it.

 

“Hello.”

 

“Hey, Richie?”

 

He knows that voice. Why does he know that voice—no, that’s not the right question. The question is: why the hell is Mike Hanlon calling him?

 

“Mike?”

 

“H-hey, I’m sorry if this is a bad time–”

 

“Whaddaya want?” Richie checks his clock. Three in the morning.

 

“It’s back.”

 

His stomach drops and yet he can’t quite remember why. But then he does, pieces of his past hitting him like a cold wind that resonates within his bones. The tuft of orange hair. Red balloon. Bikes and casts and blood and blood and

 

“I know you left this town in a hurry, and I don’t know how much you remember,” Mike says quickly.

 

“Enough. I remember enough,” he says, drawing in a shaky breath and sitting up.

 

“Well, the others— Bill, and Ben, Bev, Stan, Eddie— they’re all coming back to Derry next Saturday.”

 

“I’ll be there.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yeah.” He nods. But not for _It_ , not for himself, and not for the group. For Eddie. “I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> I might make a part two in which the Loser's reunite, but only if people want to read it, so be sure to let me know!  
> Find me @ stenbroughvevo.tumblr.com if you want to request something(:


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